1. Eli M Rosenbaum was born on May 8,1955 and is an American lawyer and the former Director of the United States Department of Justice, Office of Special Investigations, which was primarily responsible for identifying, denaturalizing, and deporting Nazi war criminals, from 1995 to 2010, when OSI was merged into the new Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section.
Eli Rosenbaum became the Director of Human Rights Enforcement Strategy and Policy in that section and in 2022 he was appointed by US Attorney General Merrick B Garland to launch and lead the Department's War Crimes Accountability Team, to pursue justice in the wake of war crimes and human rights crimes committed following Russia's invasion of Ukraine earlier that year.
Eli Rosenbaum was born in Westbury, New York on May 8,1955, to parents Irving and Hanni Rosenbaum.
Eli Rosenbaum's father, who was Jewish and escaped the Nazi regime in 1938, was a World War II veteran of the North African and European Theaters.
Eli Rosenbaum became employed by the United States Justice Department through the Honors Program after his graduation from Harvard Law School in 1980.
Eli Rosenbaum was a trial attorney with OSI from 1980 to 1984.
Eli Rosenbaum later returned to OSI in 1988 where he was appointed Principal Deputy Director and then Director.
Eli Rosenbaum has been described as a "Nazi hunter" by historians for his professional career work both in the government and with private organizations.
Cases investigated and prosecuted under Eli Rosenbaum's direction have resulted in deportations to Europe of Nazi perpetrators such as John Demjanjuk, subsequently convicted there of participation in tens of thousands of Holocaust murders.
Eli Rosenbaum directed the World Jewish Congress investigation that resulted in the worldwide 1986 exposure of the Nazi past of former United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, arguably the most "sensational" uncovering of a Nazi in postwar history.
Eli Rosenbaum was the primary author of Betrayal: The Untold Story of the Kurt Waldheim Investigation and Cover-Up, a book which was selected for "Notable Books of 1993" by The New York Times and "Best Books and Audiotapes of 1993" by The San Francisco Chronicle and which demonstrates that Waldheim was involved in the commission of Nazi war crimes while serving in the German military as an officer under the Nazi regime and postulates a Soviet-Yugoslav conspiracy to help whitewash his history.
At the time of his exposure at the hands of Eli Rosenbaum, Waldheim had served most prominently as Secretary General of the United Nations and was a candidate for the presidency of Austria.
Eli Rosenbaum was tasked with coordinating efforts throughout the federal government to hold accountable those responsible for committing war crimes in Ukraine.